All These Lives
by Horsetamer5
Summary: Au Rex's life as he commands and cares for a squad that everyone else had deemed a failure.


If someone had asked Rex a year ago what he expected the rest of his life to be like, Rex would have said that it would be short and full of war. Now, here he was a year later, looking after a what the Kaminoans called "the failed squad." There was no denying that it had been war unto itself for Rex to get custody of the boys. It had all started when Rex was back visiting Kamino for a meeting and he had heard a rumor that a squad of deficient clones was going to be terminated. Rex had then gone back and talked to his chain of command for six months before eventually being granted permission to take in the squad. Next it was a battle in the senate over the transfer of custody and then finally, Rex had gotten to get the boys out of that hell hole and bring them back to Courascant.

There were six clones in the group, each with their own set of special needs. Hevy, the established leader of the group had severe anger issues and that required anyone around him to constantly be monitoring his behavior and physical cues so as not to set him off. At least once a day, Rex had to pull Hevy off one of his brothers and treat some sort of damage.

Then, there was Droidbait, the quiet one of the group. For all intensive purposes, Droidbait was a perfectly normal clone and would be expected to be serving in the war. However, the little known secret was that Droidbait selective muteness resulted from horrible abuse by one of his instructors on Kamino. Rex was extremely proud of the progress that Droidbait had made in interacting with his brothers. Instead of constantly clinging to Hevy and whispering to the older clone when he wanted something; Droidbait had begun venturing out and interacting with his other brothers as well as advocating for himself when he needed anything.

Next, there was Fives, effectively nicknamed the conscience of the group. Fives was another clone whose disability was not visible. Fives had severe epilepsy and he had been hospitalized more times than Rex could count, since he had arrived. When he had first arrived, Fives' whole body was constantly wracked with tremors. The Kaminoans had done nothing to treat Fives and as a result, the kid was forced to undergo rigorous, often painful treatments to ease the tremors. On top of that, Fives knew that he was different, but he never understood why. Couple that with the fact that Fives had been told all his life that he would never amount to anything and now the kid had horrible self-esteem issues.

After Fives, there was Echo, whose nickname came from his Turret's syndrome. He had both physical and verbal tics. The physical tics were relatively minor, a random twitch of the hand or face. It was the verbal tics that were the most difficult to deal with, those came out when Echo was stressed or scared. When these tics made themselves known, Echo would suddenly shout out some rule or regulation that had been drilled into him by the Kaminoans. This was usually followed by Hevy yelling for Echo to "shut up before I shut you the hell up." "Hevy!" Rex would yell, "leave your brother alone! He is stressed out enough as it is, you are just making it worse!" Hevy would then let up and leave Echo alone, until the next outburst.

Next, there was Cutup, who could only be described as the troublemaker of the group. True, Hevy was the one with the violent outbursts, but Cutup was usually the facilitator and being the youngest, the one usually bearing the brunt of Hevy's retaliation. Cutup was the mastermind behind any and all trouble caused in the barracks. There had been many times when Rex had walked into the barracks only to find Echo reciting a new bad word that he had learned and Cutup sitting in the corner, smirking.

No one knew what Cutup's true diagnosis was, all they knew was that there was some disconnect between the thought and logic centers of his brain. This made him extremely impulsive and a bit obsessive. Once he got an idea in his head, the kid would pursue and obsess over it until the task was accomplished. Along with his impulsive nature, Cutup was terrible at reading any sort of social cues. This made it hard for him to see when his brothers needed some time to themselves. Rex couldn't count the number of times that the young man had come to him, crying because one of the older clones had shouted at him.

Lastly, there was Boba. Boba was not a part of the squad, Boba was the son of Jango Fett himself. However, after Jango's death, Boba had been left an orphan and had been picked up by a group of bounty hunters led by Aurra Sing. After a lengthy chase, Aurra and Boba had been cornered and Aurra had abandoned Boba to the Jedi. With nowhere else to go, Boba was on track to be put in a Republic prison until he was eighteen but Rex had stepped up and offered to take the boy in and raise him with the others. As a result, Boba had severe attachment and trust issues that were being worked on.

Many of the Kaminoans had said that Rex was crazy for wanting to take in these boys. _"Maybe I am," _Rex thought_, "but at least I am truly happy for the first time in my life"_


End file.
